An “Exocet” attack by Cherie Blair on President Chirac of France played a
critical role in helping London to beat Paris in the contest to host the
Olympics, Lord Coe discloses in a new book.

Mrs Blair went at Mr Chirac “like a banshee” over sneering remarks he had made
about British food, causing him to flee a party in Singapore before he could
lobby for Paris’s bid on the eve of the vote.

Her intervention “played straight into our hands”, Lord Coe writes in his
autobiography, which is serialised
in The Times today. Mr Chirac’s departure left the way